Who needs an entire article about the SEC filing 13 charges against crypto exchange Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao when the SEC is cranking out tweets like this? Today we charged Binance Holdings Ltd. (Binance); U.S.-based affiliate, BAM Trading Services Inc., which, together with Binance, operates https://t.co/swcxioZKVP; and their founder, Changpeng Zhao, with a […]
For two years now, PwC UK chairman Kevin Ellis has been trying to get people back into the office. In 2021, he said he wanted to “create a buzz around returning to the office,” luring his people back with the promise of human contact we were all starved for in 2020. Launched a year after […]
Hello and welcome back to another fabulous week. Here’s what’s going on. PwC Australia has named all 67 people involved in the confidential tax leak in an unpublished letter to lawmakers ahead of parliamentary hearings later this week. Jan Bouwens, Professor of Accounting, Amsterdam Business School, Amsterdam, Netherlands writes a letter to Financial Times suggesting […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. Bye. Technology AI threat will motivate workers to return to the office, says […]
According to reporting across the pond (including this story from City A.M. we shall be quoting in a moment), KPMG UKers are not going to have a fruitful bonus season due in large part to a slowdown in business. KPMG has slashed the bonus pool of its UK workforce and reined in commission for salespeople […]
Undeterred by the embarrassment of Everest’s implosion, EY proudly announced today that 966 people have been promoted to partner across the globe. That’s down from the record 1,033 promoted to partner in 2022. The obligatory press release makes sure to mention that these promotions reflect continued growth and strong business performance by the organization. In […]
In the WaPo opinion pages yesterday one Duncan Mavin, who got his start in the 90s, says the best way to solve the audit industry’s many conflicts is to kill it altogether. He starts the piece summoning the ghost of Enron, as all writers do when discussing what happens when audit goes wrong. Bringing things […]
Discountenanced Credit Suisse stockholder Gregory Stevenson is suing 29 of Credit Suisse’s current and former directors and officers, the bank’s ex-auditor KPMG, and various KPMG henchmen on behalf of investors alleging the firm looked the other way while aforementioned directors and officers plundered the bank for more than a decade. The docket number is No. […]
Tomorrow, 44 people will ascend to partner status at Baker Tilly, a slight decrease from last year’s record partner class of 46. There is, naturally, a press release and a quote from Jeff Ferro who stepped into the chairman shoes in March when Alan Whitman abruptly left his post. “Our incoming partners inspire our team […]
Last year’s Inflation Reduction Act allotted a whole bucket of cash to the IRS ($80 billion) to modernize its ancient systems and bring on new employees, a lot of employees. At the time, we wondered where the IRS was going to find tens of thousands of people with a bachelor’s degree and 30 units of accounting […]
This would have been your Monday news brief but we’re assuming at least a couple people got the day off yesterday. Welcome back to the grind. FT dropped this over the weekend: Candidate numbers for US accountancy exams drop to lowest in 17 years New figures from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants showed […]
Presumably because the many apologies and decisions made before this letter have not sufficiently gotten the heat off their backs (and boy is it hot), PwC Australia published an open letter apology on their website Monday. The entire text, including the formatting, appears in below. At issue, if you make your residence under a rock, […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. Have a safe Memorial Day. Long Read How a Pandemic-Era Program Became a […]
Last week, the AICPA released a revised pipeline acceleration plan, the goal of which is to get more young people into accounting to save the profession from extinction. To save you a click, I’m putting it here. At its spring meeting in Washington this week, the AICPA’s governing body (“Council”) approved this plan. Yay. Cue […]
Ed. note: We’ve received some additional information about layoffs, see update at the bottom. The other day Grant Thornton sent out a firmwide email packed with words like “difficult but necessary decisions,” “values and culture,” and “continued investment in growth” to inform everyone that heads were soon to roll. While pointing out that “unlike peers,” […]
Before we get into the situation, please note the issue discussed here is not EY’s fault. Rather, the office tower bearing the firm’s name at 725 South Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles has entered receivership after asset management company Brookfield stopped making payments on its debt in April. Commercial real estate firm Colliers has […]
A couple days ago, NYT published a piece asking an important question: Who will protect the workers losing their jobs to AI? The article references a May 16 senate subcommittee hearing chaired by Senator Richard Blumenthal at which OpenAI’s Sam Altman is told Mr. Blumenthal’s greatest nightmare is AI causing massive job loss. “There will […]
Ed. note: this article’s headline has been changed as we don’t actually know if he got fired or not. Neerabh Mehrotra, formerly Associate Director at Deloitte India, has been let go after he gushed over Adolf Hitler’s charisma, intelligence, and confidence on LinkedIn. The post: Text transcription, courtesy Google Lens: 😊Friday Inspiration😍 Recently I picked […]
If the headlines are to be believed, humanity is mere months away from being enslaved by artificial intelligence or, at the very least, being permanently unemployed (cue sounds of the Going Concern audience celebrating here). You may have seen clickbait articles about entire marketing departments being turfed in favor of ChatGPT (we never liked the […]
EY Global Chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio and King Charles III stan showed up on Squawk on the Street today talking about the labor market and, more notably, how the firm is using an AI chatbot to answer payroll questions. The AI segment begins around 3:05. He also discussed hiring, saying they’ve been seeing […]
Don’t know why but this article is hilarious, it feels way more TMZ than you ever expect an article about disgraced former professional services leaders to be. The Australian has informed the world that scandal-plagued ex-PwC CEO Tom Seymour was spotted in public three days after the firm announced he would be retiring on September […]
Earlier this afternoon we received a tip: Grant Thornton to perform layoffs across the firm. Numbers unknown. Areas impacted unknown. Well then, that’s not very helpful is it. A quick search uncovered this Reddit thread from a few hours ago which along with many comments about how these hoes ain’t loyal contains what appears to […]
In March, Atlanta Business Chronicle reported Deloitte did not renew its 260,000 square foot lease at 191 Peachtree St in downtown Atlanta. Now KPMG might be joining them in looking to downsize from downtown space. Deloitte’s decision may have something to do with this: Violent protests over long work weeks tonight at Atlanta’s Deloitte office […]
Good morning and happy Monday! How’s everyone doing? Let’s start off with a positive post on r/accounting. I had to check the weather report for Hell when I saw it. Current and future accountants, you have a lot to be optimistic about. by u/manthisis in Accounting Moving on, PwC Australia continues to rack up the […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. See ya. ICYMI I Love Accounting. So I Had to Leave. [GC] Benjamin […]
Of all the occupations most at risk of being replaced by synths AI in the near future — bookkeepers, programmers, and washed-up accounting blog writers, to name a few — no one really talks about how ChatGPT, Bard, and Microsoft’s Bing AI (if you’re counting that one) will impact scammers. You know, those people who […]
Satirist Mark Humphries has given us the closest thing we’ll get to an apology from PwC for their part in shattering the public trust and slandering the good name of professional services. A message from PwCpic.twitter.com/3DoR61BheQ — Mark Humphries (@markhumphries) May 18, 2023 The skit ran on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s evening news and said […]
Not satisfied with former CEO Tom Seymour as a sacrifice, the PwC tax leak scandal continues to claim victims and chip away at the good name of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Financial Times has reported that overlords from the global office “will seize” oversight of the Australian business because the Aussies screwed up, big time. The issue has […]
Good news, everyone! The AICPA released an expanded pipeline plan today. If you assumed the plan would revolve around an aggressive effort to bully firms into paying people what they’re worth, you’d be wrong. “The detailed plan features input from a significant set of stakeholders and calls for those stakeholders to work together to […]
At its core, accounting is a challenging career that requires growth and learning and can usually pay pretty well. There’s lots to do, and it requires developing expertise and finding ways to solve puzzles. Organizations need folks who can understand broad frameworks and rules and interpret that to produce all sorts of things they need. […]
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but the glorious days of work anywhere and firms too scared to lose you to force you to return to the office may soon be behind us. Apparently KPMG is telling tax people they need to come in three days a week now and PwC announced a […]
High school students in the state of New York have the chance to participate in the Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession program this summer, the deadline to apply is Friday, June 23, 2023 at 11:59pm which you can do at this link. Let’s skip the unnecessary commentary and get straight to the details. From […]
Staci Zaretsky wrote about deferred Biglaw start dates on Above the Law today and while law ≠ accounting, the sausage factory of the Professional Services Industrial Complex™ is pretty much the same thing. Let me add, we’re beginning to see delayed start dates in our little corner of the billable hour universe so this might […]
Once again, in what can only be described as an attempt to market its tax platform, Bloomberg has released its annual awards for the Bloomberg Tax Authors of the Year. We’ll just mention the Federal authors of the year here, but there are also three other categories of Bloomberg author awards: State Tax, International Tax, […]
Last Monday, PwC Australia’s Tom Seymour vacated his post as CEO after it came to light that he, along with a handful of other partners, received the low down on confidential government tax info that was then leveraged to advise clients on how to avoid upcoming tax changes. This has led to some less-than-favorable media […]
Good morning and happy Monday! Here’s some stuff happening. Virginia Society of CPAs is tackling the question “is 150 too many?” For nearly the past two decades, prospective CPAs in Virginia have had to undertake 150 hours of education before becoming licensed. But a declining CPA pipeline has accountants asking: Is the 150 now a […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. See ya. Talent Why Graduates Aren’t Hot on Accounting Careers: Low Starting Pay, […]
Have you ever been totally in the zone, grinding away at work oblivious to the world around you when you’re rudely interrupted by a *DING* that snaps you right out of your trance and back to the tedium of a seemingly infinite inbox? Or maybe you were cruising along on some project you’d been putting […]
A highlight: “Generally, you shouldn’t have a year end one after the other,” says Tara. “But the company went under a hiring freeze and I wound up with five or six clients’ year ends back to back. I was working excessively long hours and work life balance just went out of the window. I’d get […]
Article image is a still from Armanino’s 2019 recruiting video ‘The Perfect Taco’. Armanino is getting into the marketing business. In recent years, there’s been a push for CPA firms to serve as one-stop shops for more than just tax expertise and audits. And why not? Deloitte Digital has been doing it (and exceptionally well […]
[Ed. note: scroll down for assy commentary and screenshots of BDO leadership’s visit to India just days after they laid off a bunch of people in advisory, I need to get this part out of the way first] Financial Times has written about BDO USA’s plan to double its offshore workforce and couched the move […]
For those of you short on time and/or attention span, here’s Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Erica Y. Williams on Bloomberg today discussing the long-awaited inspection results for two firms inspected in 2022: KPMG Huazhen LLP in mainland China [PDF] and PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong [PDF]. PCAOB inspectors found Part I.A deficiencies in 100% (4/4) of […]
ICYMI, PwC Australia’s (former) CEO Tom Seymour stepped down on Monday which normally would inspire a hearty “who cares” from our primarily US-based audience but the issue surrounding his departure is prompting an attack on the entire professional services industry. Well, for now the attack is mostly laser-focused on PwC but the firm’s well-publicized tax […]
In recent years, US firms have shifted heavily into offshoring and it seems it never crossed anyone’s mind that offshore talent might be a finite resource. So far it seems dwindling accounting graduate numbers in the Philippines are mostly affecting in-country businesses and firms, still something worth keeping an eye on. This is from CNN […]
This one is fresh off the newswire. Deloitte announced its Chief Tax Officer Program is bringing on Paul Stephens, a 25 year veteran of AT&T, to serve as independent senior advisor. His job will be to advise Deloitte Tax staff and senior leadership “while also helping CTOs and their finance organizations create value for their […]
Ed. note: On May 15, 2023, one week after former CEO Tom Seymour vacated his role, PwC announced he will retire on September 30. While most of us were sleeping, PwC Australia was starting its Monday minus one CEO. Tom Seymour has stepped down following a board of partners discussion after it was revealed last […]
Hi! Happy Monday. Here’s some news to get the week started. We’ll be writing this up later but you might as well read about it now, PwC Australia CEO Tom Seymour has stepped down from his post. Financial Times: The head of PwC in Australia has resigned as chief executive three days after admitting that […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. See ya. Talent Survey: Accounting Graduates Favor Advisory Work, Earn More Than Peers […]
The little 7,997 person town of Charlestown, RI has settled its issues with Marcum after “furious” town officials received an unitemized $55,992 bill for out of scope services on the town’s 2022 audit. Reports The Sun, council members received the out of scope services bills dated January 18 and February 15, on top of the […]
Sky News received some insider info that KPMG UK had a bit of a tax problem last week, relating to the firm’s legal structure and employee contracts. This is on top of a payroll issue last week that meant staff checks arrived late. Sky News: The fiasco is understood to have arisen as a result […]
The rumor mill has been worked into a lather about a reduction in force at Marcum (someone in the comments says that’s BS though we did get confirmation of some kind of private equity deal coming down the pipe), lots of performance discussions at Deloitte after promotions were unexpectedly delayed for many, and possible silent […]
Today was the much-anticipated firmwide webcast in which we expected PwC leadership to announce a return to office. Lo-and-behold…it happened. A source tells us: 50 percent “people together,” virtual channel staff three times per month, firmwide events requirement two times per quarter. So return to work 50 percent starting July. r/PwC is discussing it and […]
Only days ago, WSJ ran the headline “EY Breakup Plan Is Really Dead” and included a quote from EY Americas Vice Chair of Tax Kevin Flynn, lifted from a recording of a staff call: “My message to everyone about Everest is, it’s behind us. Let’s not spend time in the rearview mirror.” And days before […]
We all know outsourcing is big these days — accounting firms might be sending a third of their work overseas and some seniors are overseeing an entire team of offshore associates — but what about insourcing? Oh wait, that means something different. We’re talking about talent-strapped Big 4 firms bringing the offshore talent to them. […]
It’s funny, I was just talking about this yesterday to a state society leader, how there’s been talk in recent weeks that outsourcing and automation have reduced the “skills gauntlet” interns and new hires go through to learn the tedious details which in turn is making a crop of staff and associates who feel almost […]
Las Vegas Review-Journal has reported that Deloitte will be one of the first tenants for the second phase of mixed-use development UnCommons in southeast Las Vegas. Developer Matter Real Estate Group announced last week that the firm will occupy 14,000 square feet on the third floor of the fourth UnCommons office building, due to be […]
The EY split is really dead. Were there any doubts? A WSJ exclusive: Leaders of EY’s dominant U.S. and U.K. operations are focused on repairing the damage from the 18-month effort to split the firm’s auditing and consulting operations, known as Project Everest. “My message to everyone about Everest is, it’s behind us,” Kevin Flynn, […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. See ya. News The leak that puts a multibillion-dollar industry at risk [Sydney […]
Another day, another Financial Reporting Council fine for KPMG. This time it is related to their audit of TheWorks.co.uk, a discount retailer specializing in arts, crafts, toys, books, stationery, and perpetual fire sales of various cheap stuff with which to clutter your domicile and desk drawers. On Wednesday, the FRC announced sanctions against KPMG and […]
620 tech companies have laid off 184,616 employees so far in 2023 per Layoffs.fyi, up from 164,511 employees in 2022 and we’re not even halfway through the year. The good news is tech layoffs are trending down for now after a peak in January, hopefully we don’t repeat last year’s pattern. It goes without saying […]
Although EY continues to deny it, Accountants Daily reports that lead partners at EY Australia have been instructed to draw up a list of everyone who isn’t pulling their weight so they can figure out who to chop, per a source. AD’s sources made it sound like no one is safe, not even partners. Sources […]
We’ve used that PwC Chad image way too many times recently so have this AI-generated fantasy forest instead. It wasn’t that long ago that Big 4 accounting firms were cagey about staff playing around with ChatGPT on company equipment, consumed by the fear of sensitive client information being fed into the AI black hole. But […]
Blockworks has written about activity on LinkedIn and Google Jobs suggesting “that Deloitte is on the prowl for crypto natives to join its ranks.” A LinkedIn search shows 331 crypto-y roles at Deloitte, almost all of them posted last week. Blockworks’ job hunter says the other Big 4 — you know who they are — […]
It’s promotion time at Deloitte and what is usually a time of celebration has devolved into disappointment and confusion for many. We’ve been tipped to unexpected promotion results and pointed to a thread on r/Deloitte that breaks it down: I just met with my coach and although I was rated as strong in all categories, […]
If you happen to pursuing the internet today and see the exciting headline about NASBA increasing the time you have to pass the CPA exam from 18 months to 30 months, there is a bit of critical information you need that you might miss if you don’t read the article: current exam candidates remain under […]
by Sharon Lassar, PhD, CPA (Florida) John J. Gilbert Professor and Director of the School of Accountancy, University of Denver There has been much discussion about the 150-hour rule recently. Going Concern previously reported the AICPA and NASBA are trying to strong-arm Minnesota into maintaining the 150-hour rule. I wrote that NASBA can be a […]
As aspiring lawyers everywhere learned with horror that GPT-4 is capable of passing the bar exam (in the 90th percentile of test-takers, no less) a whole bunch of academics were not-so-quietly putting GPT-3 to the test on accounting. Literally. Published in Issues in Accounting Education, a total of 328 authors from 186 different institutions in […]
Good morning and welcome to another Monday. Here are a few stories to whet your appetite for what promises to be a thrilling week in accounting ahead (obligatory /s). Study Finds Negative Impact on Audit Partners who Give Adverse Internal Control Opinions: As regulators review audit independence requirements to figure out whether the rules should […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. See ya. Big 4 EY Confronts Slowing Growth After Breakup Deal Fails [Wall […]
The following tidbit of information about the aftermath of the Project Everest failure is going in Footnotes later today however we felt it important to call it out for those who skip the weekly linkwrap. Apologies for doubling down on EY news today. WSJ published an exclusive about the post-Everest mess at the crack of […]
Earlier this week WSJ’s CFO Journal posted a piece entitled “Ernst & Young, After Its Failed Split, Could Find Itself Vulnerable to Staff Poaching.” They might as well have made the headline “Hey Big 4 Firms, There’s a Carcass Full of Meat Here For You to Pick Pieces Off Of” because the premise of the […]
Apparently a 3% reduction was announced in an RFA (Risk & Financial Advisory) all-hands call today (April 20). Saw only one mention of it on thelayoff and many, many on Reddit. Like this one on the Deloitte sub: According RFA All Hands: 3% of RFA will be laid off, most of which will be in […]
In November Financial Times wrote a quick little story about accounting firms eyeing private equity deals, a topic that first gained visibility when TowerBrook Capital Partners purchased an ownership stake in EisnerAmper way back in 2021. The FT story listed BDO, Grant Thornton, and Marcum as firms that have explored these deals, though none of […]
These days there is a lot of yapping about what AI can and can’t do; it CAN answer bar exam questions so well it’s nearly in the 90th percentile of test-takers, it CAN’T search in real time to find up-to-date answers beyond what it’s been trained on so it won’t be getting stuck in a […]
Vault has announced its much-loved Accounting 25 list today and it should come as no surprise that PwC has once again topped the list, making it 11 years in a row at the top for P. Dubs. Congrats to them for holding down the throne. While prestige is the most important factor in the Vault […]
Psst. Hey, you. Yeah, you. We are speaking on behalf of the universe with a message for you: You are not charging enough. Honestly, we could just end the article here but there are minimum word counts to hit so in a moment we’re going to give you a few reasons why you need to […]
Yesterday the PwC return to office plan set to be announced May 3 and take effect after the firmwide summer break was all but confirmed and in a discussion about it I came across this: Therese are nothing when compared to Deloitte’s planned RTO announcement which has a tentative announcement date of the Tuesday after […]
Post image via Here’s the Deck EY Put Together to Sell the Audit/Consulting Split to Staff It was only days ago that EY released its Empathy in Business Survey results for 2023 and if you remember, the last time they promoted empathy in business it did not go well. Recap on that from last year: […]
Well we knew this was coming. Reuters: Ernst & Young’s U.S. arm said on Monday it was shedding 5% of its workforce, less than a week after the unit’s objection torpedoed the global accounting giant’s plan to break up its audit and consulting units. The layoffs will affect around 3,000 of the company’s U.S. employees. […]
Remember that rumor buzzing around last week about a PwC return to office? It might be true. You’ll note that OP updated their post to specify that what they’ve heard applies to US tax. This morning Going Concern received a copy of a memo that appears to confirm just about everything the original rumor-spreader said, […]
Good morning and happy Monday! Here’s some news. The PCAOB wants to dismiss a lawsuit brought by an anonymous auditor who challenged the board‘s “secret” disciplinary proceedings: Among other reasons, the board noted that John Doe‘s Jan. 19, 2023, suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. But the […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. See ya. Staffing Drama Signal Mountain Won’t Pay Accounting Firm For Extra Work […]
Yet another article about the accountant shortage has been published and we’ll spare you the bit about mass boomer retirements, declining accounting enrollments, and scary AICPA figures because it gets repeated in every single one of these articles. So why mention it at all? Because at the very bottom they get the expert opinion of […]
Someone on a throwaway told all of r/Big4 a few hours ago that they’ve been given inside information about a mandatory return to office at PwC to be announced in a couple weeks. This screenshot couldn’t have worked out better. Since late 2021, PwC has touted a super flexible remote work policy. Come in, don’t, […]
We are still working on a more detailed post-mortem of the Project Everest collapse and our guesses for what comes next but in the meantime, check out what The Guardian ran this morning. EY has reportedly told UK staff to brace for a wave of cuts, after the business spent $600m (£480m) globally preparing for […]
We knew this was coming. Bloomberg has reported that Silicon Valley Bank auditors KPMG have been sued — along with underwriters Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley — after SVB’s spectacular collapse on March 10. KPMG audited the bank for nearly 30 years. Similar to previous suits, a complaint filed Friday in the […]
Spotted this on r/CPA today, thought it worth sharing because Prometric closures are awful and can easily derail anyone’s CPA exam plan, especially the Type A among you who have never met a punch with which you feel safe to roll. So what’s going on? If you’re scheduled to test with Prometric, may the odds […]
Called it! Financial Times reported moments ago: EY has called off the plan to break up its audit and consulting businesses after months of internal disagreement. The decision is set to be communicated to partners in a note on Tuesday, said people with knowledge of the matter. More to come shortly.
Not long after the November collapse of crypto exchange FTX one of the first questions asked was, naturally, “where were the auditors?” (Francine McKenna answers that question here on CoinDesk) In the weeks that followed the FTX implosion, firms that once bragged about their crypto practices quietly shuttered them and walked away and the once […]
TL;DR: After getting fined by the SEC for cheating on CPE and ethics exams in June 2022, an independent consultant review into EY’s testing procedures was supposed to be completed by March. It was not and the SEC has granted the consultants more time to get it done. As you may recall, last June the […]
By Sharon Lassar, PhD, CPA (Florida) John J. Gilbert Professor and Director of the School of Accountancy, University of Denver Last week I raised the question of whether it is ethical to promote an educational path to CPA licensure that is (highly) susceptible to cheating. The AICPA’s pipeline acceleration plan proposes an Experience, Learn & […]
It’s Monday. Yay. Here’s what’s going on. Smaller accounting firms have asked Big 4 to share their expertise [FT]: Smaller rivals have called on the UK’s Big Four accounting firms to share their audit expertise and technology, but partners at the big firms say they fear being accused of breaking competition law if they do […]
Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. See ya. AI Cranium launches out of KPMG’s venture studio to tackle AI […]
Financial Times has reported that Financial Reporting Council head Sir Jon Thompson — who last year told firms complaining about audit fines to get gud (paraphrased) — has no sympathy for audit partners across the pond who can afford Ferraris but can’t afford the staff and training necessary to perform acceptable audit work. Auditors who think […]
One difficult thing about observing and reporting on the happenings at professional services firms is that they tend to be really tight-lipped about internal metrics, attrition, and salaries. They know exactly how many people they’re losing in any given period, we do not. Not so much the case in Australia where the Workplace Gender Equality […]
A few weeks back we wrote up EY Australia’s Space Hub and its impressive new ex-NASA hire. This week, we’ve learned that Deloitte has its own big plans for space. In an April 4 press release, Deloitte announced a formal space practice “to connect organizations in rapidly growing global space ecosystem.” That’s obviously a direct […]
PwC’s hybrid work policy was quite the big deal when it was announced in October 2021, it signaled perhaps a change in corporate mentality that meant employees would be allowed the discretion to determine on their own if they need to be in the office or not. Other firms took a similar approach, though their […]
In a LinkedIn post published March 3, CLA CEO Jen Leary — who graduated wayyyy back when only 120 units were required — threw her support behind Minnesota Society of CPAs’ initiative to add a second pathway that would allow CPA licensure at 120 units and two years of experience. It may not seem like […]
A couple months ago I guessed that Baker Tilly was working on a big merger — to which a merger expert I pester from time to time asked incredulously “with who?” (paraphrased) — and then suddenly CEO Alan Whitman up and left making me think maybe I was wrong. Whitman’s sudden departure was a little […]
Last August, Australian Financial Review reported that eleven people had been “exited” (tossed, kicked out, told to F off, however you prefer to phrase it) from KPMG Australia for misconduct including bullying, sexual harassment and policy breaches in the past year; during the same period, internal misconduct complaints doubled to 88. This may have been due […]
